Chris Powell: Israel's fault is actually far too much restraint

Chris Powell

Published 4:39 pm, Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Suppose Mexico started firing rocket bombs at the United States and said it wouldn't stop until the United States ceded the old California and Louisiana territories and evacuated the East Coast as well. Suppose the rockets were fired from densely populated areas.

Of course the United States would respond by blockading Mexico and nuking everything between Juarez and Acapulco.

Appeals to the United States for "restraint" while it was under rocket attack would be dismissed with contempt.

The United States would make sure such an attack could never happen again. Think of Japan in 1945 -- leveled, smoking, and glowing in the dark.

Yet Israel, long under rocket attack by the Hamas regime in Gaza, which is pledged to Israel's destruction and murders anyone who suggests peace, is not only supposed to respond with "restraint," as urged by President Obama and other world leaders, but also to keep supplying its assailants with electricity, water, and food.

Of course most criticism of Israel while it is under attack is just political posturing and Israel has learned to disregard it.

Protecting Jews in the Middle East is no more popular than, say, protecting Armenians and Kurds is in Turkey, whose prime minister has denounced Israel's defending itself as "terrorism."

Israel should be criticized for far too much restraint with Gaza. Lately Israel has been cowering behind the anti-missile system provided by the United States, which has intercepted many missiles fired from Gaza but which also has legitimized Hamas' aggression.

Now that the missiles fired from Gaza have exceeded a thousand, Israel should resolve the problem. Israel might do this with reasonable humanity by creating a safe zone in northern Gaza for refugees.

Israel could open the safe zone to any unarmed Gaza resident agreeing to live in peace with Israel and close the zone to new entrants after a week.

And then Israel could enforce a total blockade against Gaza, turning off the electricity, water, and all other supplies and attacking Hamas and its installations without restraint, peaceful civilians having been told and given a chance to get out.

Of course many civilians professing to be ready for peace might go back to war as soon as they returned to Gaza.

But some of the irreconcilables would have been eliminated and those returning to Gaza might form a government inclined to avoid war for a while.

In any case as long as one side is committed to the destruction of the other, the other side can't survive without being equally committed to destruction.